The history of the word ὁμοούσιος has been set out by J. F. Bethune-Baker, G. L. Prestige, J. N. D. Kelly, and A. d'Alès, among others. It is certain that at the Nicene Council itself, some, notably Eusebius of Gaesarea, hesitated to accept this word, and that after the Council a reaction set in against it. It has been widely assumed that one of the main reasons for the reaction was the word's connection with Sabellianism. R. L. Ottley, for example, says that ‘one consideration which caused the Homoousion to be accepted with great reluctance was the fact that it had been condemned at Antioch (269), as a phrase capable of Sabellian connotation’. This view ignores two important facts:

(a) the condemnation of the term ὁμοούσιος by the Origenist bishops at Antioch in 269 was completely forgotten until 358 when Basil of Caesarea and the Homoiousians raised it as an objection to the Nicene formula. Eusebius of Caesarea, who had every reason to object to this term, knows nothing of its rejection at Antioch, or he would most certainly have used it as an objection.